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Convert a PDF

Conversion quality depends almost entirely on how the original file was produced. A PDF exported from Word converts back cleanly; a scan will not, no matter what the marketing says.

91 tools here do less than the name of this job suggests, and each one's profile says what it actually does. That sentence is on the profile rather than repeated on every row.

95 options · Sources read 18 October 2026 · Conversion quality depends heavily on how the original was produced, so a single test would not generalise. We record what each vendor documents and whether the converter runs locally or on a server.

What it takes, and what it produces
In: a PDF, or another format entirely. Out: another format.
What limits it
Support is per direction, so a tool that converts PDFs does not necessarily convert to the format you need. Check the direction on the record rather than trusting the category.

Convert tools: controls, file handling and cost

These are different ways to do the same job. The order does not indicate quality, and where we have not checked something the row says so rather than guessing.

95
tools handle this job
51
keep the file on your device
Observed by us, or no server anywhere in the path. Of the other 44: 15 upload your file; 23 process some versions on your device and run others on a server; 2 are documented as staying local but have not been tested; 3 run on a server you provide; 1 has no established answer.

95 tools for converting

Ordered by relevance to this job, not by payment. Our overall ranking is in the full index.

  • Adobe Acrobat
    Price Free · £14.99/mo
    Licence Not verified
    Your files Mixed
  • Aspose.PDF
    Price from £889.30 once
    Licence Proprietary commercial
    Your files No server
  • Ghostscript
    Price Open source
    Licence AGPL-3.0
    Your files No server
  • IronPDF
    Price from £740.96 once
    Licence Proprietary commercial
    Your files No server
  • MuPDF (mutool)
    Price Open source
    Licence AGPL-3.0-or-later or…
    Your files No server
  • PDF Candy
    Price Free · £4.00/mo
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • ReportLab
    Price Open source
    Licence Split by product
    Your files No server
  • ABBYY FineReader PDF
    Price from £84.00/yr
    Licence Not verified
    Your files No server
  • Power PDF
    Price from £95.00 once
    Licence proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • Prince
    Price Free tier
    Licence Proprietary commercial…
    Your files No server
  • PyMuPDF
    Price Open source
    Licence AGPL-3.0 or commercial
    Your files No server
  • Syncfusion PDF
    Price from £889.30/yr
    Licence Proprietary commercial
    Your files No server
  • Antenna House Formatter
    Price from £299.33 once
    Licence Commercial
    Your files No server
  • Apryse
    Price from £1,112.55/yr
    Licence Proprietary commercial
    Your files Mixed
  • borb
    Price Free · £214.00/yr
    Licence Dual-licensed
    Your files No server
  • Foxit PDF Editor
    Price from £8.15/mo
    Licence Not verified
    Your files Mixed
  • Gotenberg
    Price Open source
    Licence MIT
    Your files Your own instance
  • iText
    Price Free tier
    Licence Dual-licensed per…
    Your files No server
  • PDF-XChange Editor
    Price Free · £48.00 once
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • PDFgear
    Price Free
    Licence Proprietary freeware
    Your files On device - claimed
  • PDFlib
    Price from £740.00 once
    Licence Commercial perpetual…
    Your files No server
  • Pdftools SDK
    Price Not verified
    Licence Commercial
    Your files No server
  • WeasyPrint
    Price Open source
    Licence BSD-3-Clause
    Your files No server
  • Wondershare PDFelement
    Price Free · £59.33/yr
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • Adobe PDF Extract API
    Price Free tier
    Licence Not verified
    Your files Uploads - claimed
  • Apache PDFBox
    Price Open source
    Licence Apache-2.0
    Your files No server
  • Soda PDF
    Price Not verified
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • Xodo
    Price Free · £6.05/mo
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • Adobe PDF Library
    Price from £4,489.17/yr
    Licence Commercial
    Your files No server
  • Apache FOP
    Price Open source
    Licence Apache-2.0
    Your files No server
  • fpdf2
    Price Open source
    Licence LGPL-3.0
    Your files No server
  • jsPDF
    Price Open source
    Licence MIT
    Your files No server
  • Nitro PDF Pro
    Price Not verified
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • PDF Architect
    Price Free · £94.00/yr
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • PDF Studio
    Price Not verified
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files No server
  • PDF2Go
    Price Free · £6.85/mo
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • Poppler
    Price Open source
    Licence GPL-2.0-or-later for…
    Your files No server
  • RoboBraille
    Price Free tier
    Licence Free of charge for…
    Your files Uploads - observed
  • Smallpdf
    Price Free · £6.75/mo
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • Spire.PDF

    We could not check.

    Price Not verified
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files No server
  • tc-lib-pdf
    Price Open source
    Licence LGPL-3.0-or-later
    Your files No server
  • AvePDF
    Price Free · £51.00/yr
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Uploads - claimed
  • Azure AI Document Intelligence
    Price Free tier
    Licence Not verified
    Your files Uploads - claimed
  • LEADTOOLS PDF SDK
    Price Not verified
    Licence Commercial
    Your files No server
  • Master PDF Editor
    Price from £59.30 once
    Licence proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • No Fuss PDF
    Price Free
    Licence No licence or terms page…
    Your files Stays on device
  • CamScanner
    Price Free · £4.99/wk
    Licence Not verified
    Your files Uploads - claimed
  • Foxit PDF SDK
    Price Not verified
    Licence Commercial
    Your files Mixed
  • GroupDocs
    Price from £897.24 once
    Licence Commercial
    Your files No server
  • iLovePDF
    Price Free · £5.00/mo
    Licence Not verified
    Your files Uploads - claimed
  • JPedal
    Price from £710.90 once
    Licence Commercial: one-off…
    Your files No server
  • LibreOffice Draw
    Price Open source
    Licence MPL-2.0
    Your files No server
  • mPDF
    Price Open source
    Licence GPL-2.0-only
    Your files No server
  • PDF Expert
    Price Free · £72.99/yr
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • PDF24
    Price Free
    Licence Freeware
    Your files Mixed
  • pdfRest
    Price Free · £7.48/mo
    Licence Commercial
    Your files Mixed
  • SensusAccess
    Price Not verified
    Licence Institutional service…
    Your files Uploads - observed
  • Stirling PDF
    Price Free · £73.43/mo
    Licence Open-core
    Your files Your own instance

    Our pick 1: Run it yourself and nothing leaves your network. Redaction deletes the matching text without flattening the page - we tested that on our own instance.

  • Vivliostyle
    Price Open source
    Licence AGPL-3.0
    Your files No server
  • jpgtopdf
    Price Free
    Licence Not verified
    Your files Stays on device
  • PDF-XChange Core API SDK
    Price Not verified
    Licence Commercial
    Your files No server
  • Telerik Document Processing Libraries
    Price Not verified
    Licence Commercial
    Your files No server
  • PrizmDoc
    Price Not verified
    Licence Commercial
    Your files Mixed
  • AccessibilityNow
    Price Not verified
    Licence Commercial
    Your files Uploads - claimed
  • Adobe Scan
    Price Free · £4.99/mo
    Licence Not verified
    Your files Uploads - claimed
  • dompdf
    Price Open source
    Licence LGPL-2.1
    Your files No server
  • FPDI
    Price Open source
    Licence MIT
    Your files No server
  • gImageReader
    Price Open source
    Licence GPL-3.0
    Your files No server
  • Nutrient
    Price Not verified
    Licence Proprietary commercial
    Your files Mixed
  • OpenDocScan
    Price Free
    Licence Dual-licensed MIT OR…
    Your files Stays on device
  • pdfaPilot
    Price Not verified
    Licence Commercial
    Your files No server
  • Qoppa Java PDF SDK
    Price Not verified
    Licence Commercial per-library…
    Your files No server
  • Sejda
    Price Free · £5.00 once
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Mixed
  • SnackPDF Ours
    Price Free
    Licence AGPL-3.0
    Your files Stays on device
  • Xournal++
    Price Open source
    Licence GPL-2.0
    Your files No server
  • Solid Framework
    Price Not verified
    Licence No current standalone…
    Your files No server
  • Apple Preview
    Price Free
    Licence Not verified
    Your files No server
  • Marker
    Price Free tier
    Licence Apache-2.0 code
    Your files No server
  • Microsoft Lens
    Price Free
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Not checked
  • PandaDoc

    We could not check.

    Price Free tier
    Licence Proprietary hosted SaaS
    Your files Uploads - claimed
  • SignNow
    Price Not verified
    Licence Proprietary hosted SaaS
    Your files Uploads - claimed
  • SumatraPDF
    Price Open source
    Licence GPL-3.0
    Your files No server

    Our pick 7: Free, open source, no subscription and no bundled software. The reader to install when you want nothing else installed.

  • Docling
    Price Free tier
    Licence MIT for the Docling…
    Your files No server
  • Scanner Pro
    Price Free tier
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files On device - claimed
  • ICEpdf
    Price Open source
    Licence Apache-2.0
    Your files No server
  • Microsoft OneDrive document scanning
    Price Free
    Licence Proprietary Microsoft…
    Your files Uploads - claimed
  • PDFsam
    Price Free · £29.00/yr
    Licence PDFsam Basic is free…
    Your files No server

    Our pick 3: Desktop splitting and merging with no upload, and a policy that states plainly that no PDF content is sent to their servers.

  • SimplePDF
    Price Free tier
    Licence No software licence is…
    Your files Mixed
  • PDFescape
    Price Free · £4.44/mo
    Licence Proprietary freeware
    Your files Mixed
  • PDFsharp
    Price Open source
    Licence AGPL-3.0-only or…
    Your files No server
  • DocRaptor
    Price Free · £11.13/mo
    Licence Proprietary
    Your files Uploads - observed
  • MuPDF.js
    Price Open source
    Licence AGPL-3.0-or-later or…
    Your files No server
  • PDFShift
    Price Free tier
    Licence Proprietary hosted SaaS
    Your files Uploads - observed
  • PREP
    Price Not verified
    Licence Commercial
    Your files Uploads - claimed
  • Scanbot SDK
    Price from £1,854.25/yr
    Licence commercial
    Your files Your own instance

Choosing between them

Every listing here is a real product with a real website, checked for whether it is still working. Nothing on this page is paid for and no placement can be bought. Where we have not verified something, the row says so rather than guessing.

Choosing between a result you can edit and one that looks right

  • Whether the output has to stay editable

    A PDF to Word conversion that returns a real document is a different result from one that returns text boxes positioned to look right. Both open; only one can be edited sensibly.

  • Layout against fidelity to the original

    Tables, columns, headers and footers are where conversion breaks first, and the tools that preserve them best are usually the ones that generate the most awkward markup.

  • Scanned documents

    A scan is a picture, so converting it needs OCR first. Without that the output is an image, whatever the format says.

Check the result

Sources and scope

Every fact on this page comes from a vendor's own page. Each profile records the URL we read, the date, and the SHA-256 of the text, so a reader can check the bytes.

Found a changed feature or an incorrect detail? Report a correction.